1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a multilayer capacitor to be mounted on a circuit board and a method for manufacturing the multilayer capacitor.
2. Description of the Related Art
An electronic device such as a personal computer, a PDA (personal digital assistant), or a mobile phone includes a circuit board on which a capacitor, an inductor, a varistor, or a composite component in combination thereof is surface-mounted. With such a structure, the entire circuit board in the electronic device is downsized by densely mounting electronic components thereon. Examples of the capacitor to be mounted on the circuit board may include a ceramic capacitor. Examples of the ceramic capacitor may include a multilayer capacitor in which a dielectric and an internal electrode are stacked in an alternate manner.
In a case where a ceramic multilayer capacitor is directly mounted on a circuit board and a force or a heat is then applied to the circuit board itself, there is a risk that a mechanical stress due to the deformation of the circuit board or a heat stress (external stress) is applied to the multilayer capacitor to cause a crack and thereby influence internal electrodes thereof. In order to prevent such a crack, there has been suggested an electronic component in which a multilayer capacitor and a circuit board are mounted via a pair of metal terminals attached so as to interpose the multilayer capacitor therebetween (a document D1: Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-257779, for example).
Although the metal terminals described in the document D1 have an effect of suppressing cracks, a multilayer capacitor in recent years has been desired to suppress cracks more easily.